[Melchior]

Originally Posted by joelr

In that case the which way can never be erased after it is viewed by a person. Photons showing it was collapsed will always be available to some distant observer.

Hooray for theoretical black holes.

I don't know. All I see is the same requirement - information must be available to a human. Computers can hold the information and pass it around in a code form, even though they have seen the original data, and it won't change anything. If a person does that, even if you are not aware of it, once you view the screen it will show a collapse. They could collapse it without your permission and refuse to share the information with you. It will still collapse.

I'm not really sure I followed the reasoning on these first 2 things to make a decisive comment though. I tried, I'm just having some mental roadblocks

Why not a cat or any other form of being that you've attributed this value of consciousness to? Where do you draw the line? For me, there is no line, and even the most fundamental particle can cause collapse, but if that information doesn't make it to 'you', then nothing will come of it.

As for following my reasoning, what part of it is being problematic? I can try to explain it again if you'd like.

Well a non-physical wave should have 0 or less entropy than it's particle, once collapsed it has increased it's disorder. We are not at equilibrium so can we uncollapse a system forward in time?

I see... I see, but if there's no paradox then it's fine, right?

I'm sure it collapses once a human has seen it or can see it.
If that wasn't true than anyone in the room who couldn't read detector jargon would get an interference pattern. Or we could teach a student the process but he would get an interference pattern even with the info right there if he didn't understand it.
This experiment has been repeated with variations literally 1000's of times.
Students and pros have been trying to defeat this for a long time. All of the crazy results are not published because they all say the same thing in the end. Which is not really news - "Strange observer created quantum effects proven true, yet again...(boring)"
The quantum eraser was the only one weird enough to warrant mention. Most scientist were not surprised though, it's already predicted in the math.

I'm fine with that, what/where's the math for this, btw?

Yeah the detector gets a photon blip because the probability is highest in that one spot. The probability gives spacetime enough juice to fire out a photon and that's what gets detected. The wave itself is imaginary (uses i). It a complex wave not a physical wave.

If the detector spits out information and that causes a collapse - even if no scientist has gone near the information - there is a big problem there.
That is what happens. So the idea of a "physical model" of the Universe and consciousness is utterly impossible. Even if one tries to avoid some sort of mind/matter connection this strange process completely undermines what the word "physical" is all about. The causality in this experiment is not allowed for in what we call the physical. OR we keep what we know about the physical to be real but add a 2nd component that says consciousness somehow has it's own set of rules in regards to it's existence in reality. The act of "knowing" can effect matter by some process beyond our physics.

It's like saying every time I think about a ham sandwich, a ham sandwich appears in my refrigerator. In the sense that:

1) It defies what we know of as "physical rules".
2)It seems to be related to consciousness.

Thing is, if the information of the collapse by the detector never reached the scientist, then it is as though it never happened. i.e. if the sun were to pop out of existence, theoretically, the moment you see it/feel the effects is about 8 minutes later then when it happened, 'next to' the sun. It never happened for all those 8 minutes. all 'you' see is the 'past' so to speak. It's a similar line of thinking here. Also, there is no 'undermining' of the term physical, but probably a combining of that term and the term metaphysical. I'm a nondualist, you see.